


Late Bloomers

by Whiggity



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Crossdressing, Early 20th Century Fashion, F/M, Genderplay, Gentlemen Gangsters, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24883429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whiggity/pseuds/Whiggity
Summary: This wasn’t the weirdest situation Wirt had ever been in, but it was perhaps the one he had been thrust into with the least dignity.—In which the circumstances of a second fall into the Unknown demand a little flexibility vis-à-vis gender presentation. Featuring: a wish on a star; organized crime; a lavish wedding; and several very pretty dresses.
Relationships: Beatrice/Wirt (Over the Garden Wall)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44





	1. Le peignoir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Wirt is subject to a couple of very rude awakenings.

The mattress felt like an absolute dream.

Everything felt like a dream, actually, though Wirt was pretty certain he was in the process of waking up. In the handful seconds before he opened his eyes, he caught an imagined whiff of woodsmoke, a little shoe-polish, the pastoral scent of horses and wet earth. Ever since he and his brother had first come back from the Unknown, his sleeping mind had been prone to conjuring up vivid storybook adventures in the night, and even the dreams that he could barely remember usually left him feeling transported when he woke. This morning, his senses were imprinted by an idea of wool blankets, tin ceilings, and the thump of footfalls on old hardwood floors, and he knew from experience that it would take him hours to shake the sense of being stuck with one foot outside the real.

He mushed his face briefly into the pillows and forced himself to roll over. The bed beneath him was firm and responsive, still comfortable—very comfortable—but more austere than it should have been. It was too large. The pillowcases smelled like Fels-Naptha instead of Downy, and rather than his knees hitting his bedroom wall when he curled onto his left side, they hit the soft warm mass of another human being. Greg? Who else could it possibly be?

A small grumble sounded from his bedmate. That was not Greg’s voice.

Wirt finally cracked open a concerned and drowsy eye. That was not his brother’s voice, and this was not his bedroom. The decor here was best described as heirloom, the style manifested in floral wallpaper, decorative moulding, and a single-pane window open to streaming sunlight and the sounds of Main Street foot-traffic. The furniture was antique; the carpets were oriental; the lighting fixtures looked to be gas. He was so taken by his unfamiliar accommodations that he almost failed to question the shape of another human being facing him in bed. A girl-shape.

A girl-shape in a state of undress. A girl-shape with bare freckled arms and red hair and eyebrows knitted up, even in sleep. A girl-shape that he had seen only once before, briefly, years ago, but which he recognized now without a second's hesitation.

Wirt sat bolt upright in bed, and the unyielding cotton mattress transferred his movement to jounce the girl from sleep. She snapped one eye open behind a snarl of auburn hair and fixed him with the immediate intent of a bird of prey.

Beatrice didn’t say a single word and she didn’t waste a moment. She tore the blankets away from both their bodies, curled her knees to her chest, and kicked him out of the bed, across the floor, and into the open wardrobe.

“Wirt!” she shrieked as soon as he came to rest, curling in pain away from his bruised tailbone. His elbow had made impact with the wardrobe’s foot, and linens rained upon his head and boxer-clad lap. “How the hell did you—?!” 

But a short rap on the door cut her off, and her expression turned so instantly sharp that even Wirt felt the importance of not vocalizing his unhappiness. She leaped out of bed and pressed her body flat against the wall next to the door, as if ready to slug someone on their way in.

“Jimmy?” The voice which sounded from the other side was deep and nasally, the address given in a tone of amusement. “What’s that ruckus?”

Wirt hadn’t been this confused since… the last time he landed himself in the Unknown. He raised his hands at Beatrice in a gesture of _What the hell?_ and Beatrice’s only response was to draw a threatening finger across her neck. She answered her unseen caller in gravelly tones which sounded uneasy in her throat: “All’s well, Munroe. Spooked myself. Be out for breakfast with the boys in, uh… soon.” She grimaced, as if waiting for her lie to be called out.

The man named Munroe didn’t second-guess her, though. There was a little tease in his voice as he asked, “You got a girl in there, mate?”

Beatrice dragged her hands down her face. Wirt pulled a tea towel off of his head. “Ah-ha,” she chuckled through gritted teeth, “you’re not gonna rat on me, are you Muzzie?”

There was a pause, and then the man on the other side of the door let out a booming laugh. “Well, good for you, Jim! Awright, take your time, then. We’ll hear about it at lunch.” Munroe’s departure was tracked by the sound of his amusement fading away. Beatrice slowly slipped down the wall, relaxing her grimace and pulling her fingers out of her tangled hair. She was all in white, wearing only drawers and a men’s singlet, and still more dressed than Wirt was. He lifted the tea towel self-consciously across his shirtless chest. 

Beatrice, who had buried her face in her hands, didn’t look at him when she finally spoke again: “What. Exactly. Are you doing here.”

It wasn’t quite a question, and that was fine, because Wirt didn’t know how to answer it. ”I…” He looked around the space again, at a loss. On second examination, this seemed to be a hotel room, a few days lived-in and fairly nice beneath the loose substrate of garments and hairpins scattered across the floor. Birds twittered and church bells sounded from somewhere across town. Everything from his discomfort to the smell of food wafting through the window felt sharp and real.

He just said, “I think I’m dreaming.”

“Why would you _dream,”_ Beatrice hissed, “of being naked! In my bed!” 

Wirt started to protest, “I wasn’t—” but she didn’t seem to really care. She pushed herself to her feet and angrily began pulling on a pair of trousers which had been draped across the chair under the window. “I’m not—I’m not _naked._ I can’t believe—I would never—I-I went to bed last night in the _privacy of my own room_ , I had no way of knowing—!”

Beatrice rounded on him in frustration and tossed a pillow at his face. “You cannot make a single peep,” she commanded as he came up gasping from the puff of feathers loosed on impact. “You will sit right there and be _quiet,_ while I do some recon to figure how to sneak you out of here without any of the boys—”

Another brief peal of laughter sounded from the hallway, and she issued an oath and hastened to button up her wrinkled dress shirt. Beatrice snapped a pair of suspenders over her shoulders and stuck exactly as few pins in her hair as was necessary to fit the curly mass of it under a flatcap. She was dressed, not unconvincingly, as a man. He didn't have the chance to ask why before she exacted another threatening gesture at his person.

 _“Quiet,”_ she emphasized once more, and then disappeared through the door, leaving Wirt completely alone, mostly nude, and still halfway seated in a wardrobe which smelled of resin and mothballs.

This wasn’t the weirdest situation he’d ever been in, but it was perhaps the one he had been thrust into with the least dignity.

* * *

Beatrice’s reconnaissance of the upper floor of the Hotel Fantaisie promised nothing in the way of opportunity to sneak someone out of her sleeping quarters. When she first arrived at the inn two days past, she’d thought herself very clever for taking the room next to the hallway lounge, the better to keep an ear out for when The Son of a Bitch planned to show his rat face again; now, the location just guaranteed that nobody could make it out her door without suffering the scrutiny of half of Mr. Rott’s gang. She shuffled down the hall with her eyes keen and her hands in her pockets, heading for the water closet by the stairs. Not everyone was up yet, but Ulrich the Undertaker gave her a somber nod from the reading nook by the window, and the Jitters Twins were enjoying an early game of cards on the mezzanine above the grand lobby. Beatrice met their attentions with the same slick grin which had helped ingratiate her to Rott’s Gang in the first place, then slipped into the washroom and took a moment to scream silently into her hands.

It would be bad enough for a stranger to be witnessed on the floor of the hotel reserved for Wilhelmina Rott’s wedding guests. It would be much worse for that stranger to be an undressed teenage boy, seen slipping out of “Ginger” Jimmy McPoyle’s room in the small hours of the morning.

Of all the stupid half-baked wishes she’d ever made, why did this have to be the one that came true?

When she'd taken care of business and made it back to Room 330 at the end of the hall, she nearly had a heart attack. Wirt had wrapped himself in a bedsheet and stood in front of the wide-open window, peeking curiously down on the bustling road below. “What are you doing!” she screeched, then clapped a hand over her own stupid mouth as she dragged him out of view and shoved him back toward the center of the room. “I told you not to let anyone see you!”

He hit the mattress hard and made the iron frame creak. “You said to be quiet!”

_“Shh!”_

Wirt threw up his hands.

Beatrice made a sly scan out the window herself. Fortunately, there was no sign of Rott’s men on the street. She latched the pane and drew the curtains, and then it was just the two of them in a quiet room full of muted light. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot to show she wasn’t fooling around.

“Alright,” she said. “Now tell me why you’re here. And keep it _down_ this time.”

Instead of answering the question, Wirt asked her in turn, “What are _you_ doing?” and made a gesture of disbelief across the whole of her person. “What is this? Where are we? Why did someone call you—?”

“Jimmy McPoyle.” Beatrice headed him off. She bore forward to look him hard in the eye: “Newest, youngest member of Edwin Rott’s Gentlemen Gangsters, personal invitee to his youngest daughter’s wedding on Sunday afternoon, and overall good stooge who _doesn’t invite outsiders to events where Mr. Rott is going to be present.”_ Wirt’s eyebrows raised a further tick with each new designation she applied to herself. “Which is why I’m really curious about how you got here, Wirt! Not because it’ll change anything in the long run, just because knowing will be the last satisfaction I get before they feed us to the fishes!”

It shouldn’t have surprised her that Wirt didn’t know. Wirt didn’t know anything. “I just…” He shrugged, and the sheet fell from his shoulders down around his hips. Beatrice turned away to pace the floor, trying to come up with a plan. Maybe they could toss him out the window? The flush of a promising idea prompted her to scrutinize him, hard enough that Wirt looked distinctly uncomfortable as she ran her eyes slowly from his uncombed head down to the tips of his toes. “Um.” He pulled the sheet back around his collarbone. “What are you doing?”

“You’re a lot taller now,” Beatrice mumbled into her palm.

“What?”

She shook her head. “You won’t fit into my clothes. We can’t get you out of here at all until we have something to dress you in.” And that realization got the seed of another, wilder idea germinating in her mind.

“This isn’t how I wanted to spend my day,” Wirt complained as Beatrice took to pacing again. “I had a presentation to make for my composition class, you know, this is a school day for me. And after classes were over I promised Greg I’d take him to the activity hour at the library, and I always do the grocery shopping on Fridays so my mom doesn’t have to when she gets off work… I have to get _back,_ Beatrice.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she snapped, and waved a hand to shut him up. “What’s your shoe size, in women’s?”

“I’ve been putting off my chemistry homework for a week and tonight is my last night to—What?”

“How tall are you?” Beatrice continued, hauling him to his feet by the wrist. He squawked and dropped the sheet again. “About eighteen hands?”

“I’m six-one,” Wirt said, aghast. “I’m not a _horse.”_

She applied her good eye for dimension to the breadth of his shoulders, his twiggy arms and legs, his narrow hips and chest and his oversized feet. Obviously it would have been easier to bring Wirt to the dress shop in person, but there was a whole host of reasons for why that wasn’t an option. Anyway, the Unknown was a funny place. Things tended to work out in just the manner you needed them to, if it would make for a good story. She pulled her coin purse out of the lining of her jacket and gave it a considered weigh.

“I’ll get you out of here,” she finally promised. His eyes widened. “And in repayment, you’re going to attend a wedding with me. I’m not playing dress-up with the Gentleman Bastards here because it’s fun, Wirt, they have business with me. One of them stole something of mine and I’m going to get it back.”

She marched to the door with her chin up and her stride long. If she’d had more time, she would have preened at the reverence in his tone as he asked her retreating back, “What did they take?”

“It doesn’t matter. That's not the point.” She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “I’m going to buy something for you to wear. It might take me an hour or two. Don’t open this door for anyone but me, don’t let housekeeping in, and for God’s sake, _don’t_ stick your head out the window again. If you have to answer a knock, try to sound like a call girl.”

“Hold on,” Wirt protested. He stood in the middle of the room, still in his underpants, slouched and bony and indignant-looking. “You’re going to be gone for hours? What am I supposed to do until then?”

“Sit around and try to look pretty,” she suggested. “You’ll need to get good at that.” Beatrice tossed him a careless look over her shoulder, and left the room before he could raise any objections or question what exactly that was supposed to mean.

* * *

In Beatrice’s absence, Wirt was _not_ content to sit around and look pretty, and he appreciated neither the condescension nor the slightly wicked undertone in her suggestion that he do so. He didn’t know what sort of plan she had in mind, but he already disliked it.

He sat for a while, slouched off the edge of the bed in an intentionally unflattering manner out of sheer contrariness. When his back started to hurt, he took a few tours around the hairpin-scattered floor and then dropped to his knees to try doing push-ups, which was, as he understood it, how people occupied themselves in prison. He managed three before collapsing.

From flat on his stomach in the middle of the rug, Wirt stared forlornly at the radiator under the window and felt very sorry for himself. He was confused and concerned, but more than that, he was _bored._ The clock said that Beatrice had been gone for eleven whole minutes. What a life. The only thing to read in the hotel room was a worn Bible in the nightstand, with _Deuteronomy 22:5_ penciled in on the title page. He didn’t know that passage and didn’t care to hunt it down. Finally he just threw himself backward onto the disheveled bed, staring at the stamped tin ceiling and struggling to keep his eyes open. The dim light moderated his stress level and left him very sleepy.

But sleeping wasn’t a half-bad plan, was it? He had a lot of nothing else to do, and the mattress was quite comfortable. He curled up around a Greg-sized pillow and sank back into the dark, anticipating how good it would feel to wake back up in his own room, maybe even without the burden of having to remember any of this nonsense in the morning.

What happened instead is that he was woken by blinding sunlight across his eyes and a croissant thrown at his face. “Morning, sleeping beauty!” Beatrice crowed from next to the window, with her hands full of drapes and her voice low-timbred. Wirt rolled frantically to orient himself in a still-unfamiliar environment, and fell off the far side of the bed. “Eat your breakfast, and then we can get to work. ...Is that a Bible on your pillow?”

“No,” Wirt grumbled, and shoved the little leatherbound book back into the nightstand.

“Good. I have no use for a man with too many moral compunctions.” Beatrice took off her cap and sighed at drawing her fingers across her scalp. She sat in the wicker window-chair and began eating a croissant of her own, while Wirt stayed glumly on the floor with his upper body laid across the mattress. Only then did he notice a number of bags and boxes piled next to the door, all in shades of pink and yellow. _Miss Construed,_ read the ribbon cursive on their longest faces. He gave them a long hard look.

“I thought you were living incognito as a man right now,” he said.

“I _am,”_ Beatrice responded, slapping her chest to show off how flat and masculine it looked.

“Then why...?” Wirt drew a deliberate finger toward the wares by the door and let the implied question hang. Beatrice took her time answering it. She chewed, and swallowed, and wiped her fingers on the chair’s skirt and picked the crumbs carefully from her collar.

She finally said, “You remember that creepy circus we had to escape from, back in the day?” and Wirt’s stomach plummeted. “The one that wanted a talking bluebird to bring in the crowds, and kidnapped Greg to use him as a clown?”

Wirt choked, “No.”

“Of course you do,” Beatrice insisted. “And in order to infiltrate the organization you had to disguise yourself from head to toe, completely unrecognizable, and the best way to do that was to wear—”

 _“No_ — _”_

“—a dress.” She stood up pertly and began hauling bags into the center of the room. “And it worked! Why put in the effort to come up with a new idea when you’ve got an old one with a good track record?” The first parcel she opened contained a large floral sun hat, trimmed in red ribbon and chrysanthemums. As Wirt crawled atop the bed, she handed it off so he could get a good look.

“These Gentleman Gangsters are the sorts of jerks who would never suspect a girl of anything,” Beatrice enthused as Wirt struggled to count the sheer number of flowers on the brim. “That’s how I got this far with ‘em.”

“As... a man?”

“As a _girl_ disguised as a man,” Beatrice said smugly. Wirt didn’t have the energy to explain to her why that didn’t make any sense, because the important thing was to establish that he would _not_ be wearing a dress again. He opened his mouth to state such, but had to cut himself off in order to avoid a faceful of the brown wig she had just tossed at him underhand. Beatrice began unpacking the bags, and her momentum built with each withdrawal.

“Stockings to cover your stupid hairy man-legs—” She threw the box at him, “gloves to hide your stupid hairy man-arms—” He managed to catch those before they hit them in the nose, “and a high-collared dress to cover your stupid lumpy man-neck.” She pulled the gown from the box and draped it across her front with a flourish, and not without a little pride. It was a trim thing, not too frilly. White cotton with a bodice of red-accented damask.

Wirt’s first thought was that it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. Tasteful, even. His second thought was, “Wait, you want me to wear this to a wedding?”

“That’s the idea, dummy, haven’t you been listening?” She pulled it fully from the box and laid it out on the bed. “You have no idea how lucky I was to find something that was halfway nice and also wide enough to fit your stupid—”

“Beatrice. It’s white. You can’t wear white to a wedding.” She looked down at the dress again and her expression turned stricken. How could a girl not know something like that? How had _he_ wound up in the position of having to enforce nuptial etiquette? He was having a terrible day. “This whole plan is ridiculous. I’ll—I’ll just hide in here until the ceremony’s over and everyone leaves and nobody will have to know—”

But Beatrice said through her teeth, “I already _told_ them about you.”

“What?”

She tossed the garments down onto the bed next to him with a look of genuine distress. “I ran into Yorick and Manslaughter Mickey in front of the bakery while I was carrying a bunch of bags from the dress shop! What was I supposed to say? ‘Yeah, fellas, I bought these lacy white pantalettes for my _ma?’”_

Wirt might have curled up and died then and there. _“Why did you buy any pantalettes at all?”_

“And the story just snowballed!” Beatrice cried, seeming not to care very much about keeping quiet when she was the aggrieved party. “That you were this sweet young thing I met in the market last night, all in rags and in need of a good hot meal—these guys are married, you know? They can be romantics. And you were such a peach, so I didn’t know for _sure_ that you were a prostitute when I invited you over last night but I figured it out pretty quickly when—hey, no!” Wirt made an actual, definitive move toward the hotel room window. He intended to fling himself from it, and if he died on impact, so much the better. Beatrice took him by the arm and hauled him back around to face her with a grim expression.

She informed him, “We’re engaged.” Wirt blinked at her once, and slid his gaze longingly back toward the third-floor window. _“No,”_ she said again.

His voice was hollow: “It’s for the best.”

“It’s not the best for _me,”_ Beatrice groused. “If throwing a naked scrawny nerd out the window served my purposes I’d have done it already!” She shoved him back toward the bed, and he accepted her manhandling with defeated grace. “So—Jimmy McPoyle proposed to a hooker this morning, twelve hours after meeting her, and now she’s his plus-one to Wilhelmina Rott’s wedding. That’s the story and we’re sticking to it. And... I guess we’re going back to the dress shop to buy something you can actually wear to the event.” She pulled the lacy pantalettes from their bag, gave them a look of mild disgust, and threw those at him as well. He didn’t bother to catch them this time. Beatrice crossed her arms and glared out the window, seeming to expect Wirt to do something.

“Well?” she finally snapped. “Are you gonna doll yourself up, or do I have to do it for you?”

He had no real fight left in him, but he wasn’t going to make her terrible plan any easier to pull off, either.

He made her doll him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't say this was a great idea and I'm not absolutely sure where it's headed. The third parties on the periphery of this fic's creation shall remain unnamed, but they know who they are and they most certainly know what they did.
> 
> The "creepy circus" referenced in this chapter is semi-canon. Read Circus Friends, available from Boom Comics, to learn more about Wirt's history of dressing in drag.
> 
> Current rating is T, but this is subject to change. Wirt is 18+, to be safe. Beatrice is eternal.


	2. Le jupon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Son of a Bitch shows his rat face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably as good a time as any to make it clear that, as lighthearted as I intend this fic to read, the central conceit still relies on the assumption that it will be funny to see Wirt unwillingly* sissified and sexually harassed by pretty much every man he meets over the course of three straight days. I certainly think it's funny. But let this serve as a **content warning** if that doesn't sound like your cup of tea.
> 
> _*at least it's unwilling at first, kek_

Jimmy McPoyle presented in the dining room at luncheon with his intended, late enough in the day for the story of their engagement to have spread widely amongst the gang’s inner circle and even a little beyond. The hotelier had not seemed thrilled at hearing that yet another lady of ill repute had taken up on the third floor, but the man had too much sense to make a fuss. Really, what else had he expected in taking on the patronage of Edwin Rott’s Gentlemen Gangsters? Boys would be boys, and boys had needs best satisfied at the very high-class bordello on the corner of Union and Main. All morning, ever since overhearing their lovers’ kerfuffle from behind closed doors, Munroe had been keeping an eye out for Jimmy and his new flame. He rose to greet the two of them the moment he saw that carroty head pop up in the company of the maître d'.

“Man of the hour,” he crooned as Jimmy stalked over, linked at the elbow with his ball-and-chain-to-be. “Talk of the town! Rumor says you had quite a yesterday evening, Ging.” Jimmy managed to grimace through Munroe’s welcome, while the girl on his arm blushed bright pink. “Ha! Ah, don’t look so down, Jim, you’re still a youngin’—takes a man a few more years to develop a sense of humor about his own bad decisions. No offense to the missus, of course! Now—” Munroe took the young lady around the shoulder and offered her a chair at the table he shared with Harold and Humphrey Jitters, leering in from either side. He settled down across from the happy couple and clasped his hands expectantly atop the table. “Won’t you do me the honor of introducing me to your pretty fiancée?”

The lovers shared a nervous, lingering glance. Adorable.

“Gentlemen,” Jimmy finally piped, then stopped to clear his throat before continuing in normal tones. “Gentlemen, I’d like for you to meet my bride-to-be, Wi... Wa... Juanita.” They must have had a very good night together indeed; the lad could barely remember his girl’s name. She shot him a withering look askance. “I met her only yesterday and knew right away that my, uh... my life would never be the same. We’re in love,” he finished, sounding very tired.

Munroe held out for the young woman’s hands, and the girl flushed deeper still, but obliged him. “An absolute pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” he promised, offering a kiss against the back of each of her gloves and a thorough appraisal out of the corner of his eye. Baby-faced as Jim might be, he was still obviously subject to those benedictions reserved for the young and virile, because hell if his one-night fiancée wasn’t an absolute drink. She was six feet of pure woman, svelte and statuesque, with a long nose and longer jaw and legs that stretched all the way to the floor. Her chestnut hair fell thick around a respectable set of shoulders, and her hands, hastily withdrawn from his grasp, were absolutely enormous.

Munroe liked that in a woman, and this particular woman was of such a station in life that he couldn’t see any reason not to let himself stare for a moment.

On Munroe’s left, Humphrey Jitters lasciviously stirred his espresso. “Top-notch catch, this’un, Jim,” he drawled. “Musta had a few tricks up her sleeve, that you scooped her up so quick-like.” Humphrey had no head for niceties, and a knack for saying what everyone was thinking. That was what got him in trouble, usually. “Got me wishing I’d had a chance to see what all the fuss was about first.”

“But hold on a tick, brother.” Harold Jitters leaned sharply forward. “Didn’t this young lady used to work at Madame Richielieu’s?” The future Mrs. McPoyle drew backward in her seat, looking first confused, then horrified, then hopeful that Jimmy would intervene, but Jimmy just sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. He knew well enough by now that Harold was not a man easily deflected. The dame iced her fiance with another glare and, given no other option, finally spoke.

“You must have me mistaken for someone else,” she breathed into a napkin, strategically muffled. Her voice was positively pitchy.

“No. I don’t think so.” Harold refuted her without hesitation or grace, craning slightly around the table to get a look at her from the side: “I’d never forget a pair of legs like that.”

The twins snickered between themselves. Poor Miss Juanita was using those majestic hands to wring her napkin like a chicken’s neck, and Jim looked as though he’d have liked to crawl into the seafood tank and eat dirt with the lobsters. Munroe, who had plenty of sympathy for the young and stupid, decided it was time to defuse the situation with a spot of tea. 

“No need to take it personal, miss,” he comforted the girl as he raised a hand to bring ‘round the server. “We’re all friends here. As Mister Rott has been known to say—”

“‘Men can’t conduct _organized crime_ without spending _quality time,’”_ drawled a new voice from over Munroe’s shoulder. “Lord! If I ever have to hear another platitude shat out by my softheaded father.” Munroe managed to turn his grimace into a grin just in time for Quentin Rott to round the table and pull out the last chair for himself, with the slouch of a man who knows he needn’t wait to be invited anywhere.

The Jitters twins sat straight and quieted themselves, and even typically-irreverent Jimmy took sharp notice of the man who had just joined them for luncheon. Only the young lass Juanita seemed not to understand what sort of regard the Rott children demanded with their presence; she continued to sit with her shoulders drawn and her eyes avoidant, which Quentin noticed. Of course Quentin noticed. His pale eyes narrowed and interest quirked his sullen brow.

“Well, well, well,” he murmured. “Now, Munroe, how did you know exactly what dish to order for me?” And he slicked back his hair with a hand.

Not at all like when Harold and Humphrey had been having their fun, Jimmy nearly jumped out of his chair. “Ging,” Munroe said in warning tones, and to his credit, the boy managed to turn his anger into something like an expression of excitement. “Ah, Quentin! I thought you weren’t expected in town until the morning of the wedding.”

“Yes, well,” Quentin said carelessly. “There was a bit of a kerfuffle back at the estate. My hag of a sister-in-law decided I was ‘not welcome in her house, now or ever again,’ so I made the decision of my own free will to abscond that hovel and make my early way to this… establishment.”

The snarl in his voice did not portend a pleasant dining experience for any of them. Munroe had known Quentin since he was a boy, and the general trajectory of his upbringing had been that if the youngest Rott child was not getting what he wanted, neither might anyone else. The Jitters brothers looked jittery. “You know,” Munroe said loudly, hoping to reroute the stream of conversation, “I don’t believe the two of you have been properly introduced.” He reached out to clap Jimmy on the arm. “Jim, we’ve found ourselves in the company of Quentin Rott himself. Quentin, my boy, this is Jimmy McPoyle. He’s new ‘round here, but very good at what he does, and you can take my word for that. Was the two of us working together on the Hayfever Job last month. Those sheep never knew what hit ‘em.”

“We’ve met before.” Jimmy bared his teeth in a plausible smile. He didn’t reach out for a shake, and Quentin seemed not to care. “In Waterdale, as a matter of fact.”

“Certainly not. I’ve never been to Ottervale.” Quentin still couldn’t be bothered to look at Jim in favor of Juanita, across the table from him and half-hidden behind her kerchief. “So who is this delicacy, then?”

It wasn’t until that moment that Jimmy’s betrothed seemed to realize the extent of the attention which had been creeping toward her like a fog. Her eyes snapped up to meet Quentin’s for the first time, and just a little steel glinted there.

Jimmy began to growl under his breath, “She’s my–”

“My _name,”_ the lass interrupted her fiancé with a firm hand on the tabletop, “is Juanita.” 

Her fingers spread as wide as a dinner plate atop the kerchief she’d held crumpled in her palm. Several patrons at the nearest tables turned to look over the outburst. Munroe felt blown slightly backward by the power in her voice, finally coaxed to full volume; she immediately bit her lip, as if in embarrassment, but the reveal of such a vein of moxie beneath all her modesty was more intriguing than the largest pair of hands in all the world.

There was just something about this girl. Jimmy truly was a lucky man.

And Quentin seemed to agree. Against expectations, he did not pout over the displeasure radiating off her person, but leaned further forward, very nearly across Jim’s plate: “I believe I may put in the effort to remember that,” he murmured. Juanita squared her shoulders and pursed her lips. She looked as though she might speak again, but Humphrey Jitters took that opportunity for himself.

“She used to be one of Madame Richelieu’s,” he intoned matter-of-factly, “but our boy Ging ‘ere scraped her up outta the gutter last night and now they’re going to be married.”

“You don’t say.” Quentin’s smirk did not look disspirited in the least. He raised a lazy hand to summon the waiter. “Well. Easy come, easy go, I imagine. Isn’t that how these things usually work, John?”

“Jim,” said Jim.

“I don’t care.” 

Quentin Rott kept his eyes on Juanita for the rest of their meal. He ordered off-menu and ate slowly when the dish finally arrived, swallowing each bite purposefully before following it up with a satisfied sigh. Creature of grace and dignity that she was, Juanita refused to rise to the bait. She focused all attention toward spearing her mesclun leaf-by-leaf.

“Have you tried the sausage?” Quentin asked after a point, spearing a link on his fork and waving it across Jimmy’s plate. “Not you, Johnny, the girl. She’ll relish it, I’m sure.”

Juanita took a deep breath and seemed to carefully consider how to handle this. “I’m a vegetarian,” was her decorous response.

A look of dangerous glee cracked the corner of Quentin’s mouth. “Rumor says you’ve a taste for meat,” he crooned. “You’ll find mine more filling than most.” And he wiggled the sausage insistently again.

Juanita stood abruptly. A blush sat high on her cheeks and her fists were clenched like canned hams; “I have to use the restroom,” she blurted, and swept quickly away from the table, pulling every eye as she passed, like iron filings chasing a lodestone. The space she left behind her felt almost bereft. Jimmy watched her go with a look of oddly calculated interest, unbothered by the sausage still dangling in his face.

“Suppose she wants me to follow her,” he commented after a moment.

“Probably headed back to your room right now, mate,” Harold Jitters confirmed. “You seen the look in her eye? That was an invitation to a midday _lee-aye-shun_ if I ever heard one.” 

Humphrey nodded in agreement. “Women. They’re insatiable, it’s all they think about.”

Still wearing the look of a man with a plan, Jimmy rose to his feet and dropped his napkin on the table. He bid them all “Gents,” with a nod, and straightened his suspenders and then padded off to follow his girl out of the busy restaurant, bobbing orangely in between members of the waitstaff. Munroe cast a look out the corner of his eye at Quentin, who was still brandishing that pork link, still uncharacteristically game in mannerism. It was unnerving to see so persistent a smile on so devilish a face.

“I do believe I’m going to steal his fiancée,” Quentin remarked, and made a show of baring his teeth while he took a hearty bite of sausage.

If anyone in this world had the perfidious luck to do such a thing, it was Quentin Rott. Munroe was determined not to involve himself in the antics sure to come, but nonetheless he silently wished the young sweethearts well, and ordered a round of dessert for everyone still at the table. Shame that Jimmy would miss out, but he had a far tastier treat awaiting him upstairs. Shed no tears for that one. At least not yet.

* * *

It took Beatrice a few minutes to track Wirt down the branching hallways past the Roman baths. One might expect the tallest dame on the premises to stick out a bit more prominently, but on and on Beatrice continued to walk, searching for another flash of the red-and-white skirt which had led her into the belly of the hotel in the first place. She finally found him in the rear atrium, when she gave a second glance to what she had assumed was some kind of decorative drop cloth laid out behind a lush dracaena. A pretty floral sun hat was set carefully on the ground next to it.

“Hey,” she grunted as she parted the swordish leaves. Wirt was seated as smally as he could make himself, his hands wrapped around his knees and his vestments slightly caught on the stucco wall behind him, as though he had made a slow drop to the ground against it. His eyes were wide and his wig was ruffled. “You better get off the floor. You’re gonna get dirt on your–” 

“Who cares!” Wirt cried. His undisguised voice echoed through the big empty room loudly enough that Beatrice instinctively checked over her shoulder for eavesdroppers. It was only the two of them and the ivy on the walls, and the marble cupid atop the trickling fountain. “I’m going back upstairs and taking it all off anyway, I can’t do this–”

“Oh, sure,” Beatrice grumbled, “you’ll wear a dress to _save your brother from indentured servitude_ but not to _help me on a quest for petty revenge–”_

“That was awful.” Wirt was going to ruin his gloves, wringing his hands so tightly. Someone ought to teach him how to properly treat such fine and expensive clothes. “That was humiliating. I can’t believe you work with men like–”

Beatrice kicked the spread of his skirt out of the way so she could sit down next to him. She placed his hat in her lap. “I’m not their _friend,”_ she reminded him, leaning forward hotly. “I’m here to get back what was taken from me and rob these bastards blind in the process. Don’t you get it, fool? Quentin Rott is the Son of a Bitch I infiltrated this gang to find! He’s finally shown his rat face again for the wedding, and the time to strike is _now.”_ She closed a fist in the space between their faces. “Maybe he doesn’t remember the girl he stole from in Waterdale, but he’s sure as hell going to remember the names Jim and Juanita McPoyle.”

“I’m not putting myself in the middle of this,” Wirt said flatly. “Did you see the way he was _looking_ at me?” A disgusted shudder ran across his shoulders.

It wasn’t that Beatrice had no sympathy, but he was really overthinking the situation. “Quentin Rott is stupid, cowardly, and six inches shorter than you,” she shot back. “What are you worried about, exactly?”

It took Wirt a moment to answer. He wove his fingers into the long brown locks around his temples and dug them in, hard. “It’s humiliating,” he said again finally. “It’s–it’s dehumanizing. Can you imagine what it’s like, sitting at that table, everyone staring, everyone talking about you like you’re not there or like you’re a piece of _food–”_

“No,” Beatrice deadpanned. “I, a girl, have absolutely no idea what it’s like to hear men talk that way.” A look of understanding dawned on Wirt’s face. “I, a girl who once spent an entire season living as a teeny tiny little bird and eating maggots, have _no idea_ what it’s like to feel humiliated or dehumanized or completely reliant on favors from people who could–”

Wirt raised a hand to stop her. “Fine,” he said miserably. “Fine. I get it.” They didn’t speak for a few minutes. The air rang with the distant sounds of the caldarium and laundry facilities. Gray light from the glass ceiling glimmered off the waters in the fountain. “The difference is,” he finally remarked, “you actually were a bird.” He extended a finger to brush one of the flowers on the brim of his hat. “I’m just wearing a dress.”

Beatrice smirked at him, then let the smile fade slowly away as she decided to tell him something important. “You have to help me,” she said firmly. “Probably literally. I made a wish on a star last night, so I don’t think you’ll be able to go home until I’ve gotten what I wanted.”

The notion startled Wirt neatly out of his melancholy. “You _wished_ for me to be here?” he demanded to know. She supposed she’d rather deal with him indignant than despondent. “Then why the third degree this morning, asking how I–?

“I didn’t wish for _you,”_ Beatrice scoffed, and shoved the sun hat up into his face. “I wished for _help._ I was having a hard night. Kinda hoping one of my brothers might show up, or something.” Wirt raised an eyebrow at her over the brim of the hat. “But you’re what I have now, so we gotta find a way to make this work. I get my retribution, and you get to go home, all by the time the wedding is over. A wish come true for everyone.” She stood up and held out a hand for him to join her. “What do you say, Juanita?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What do you say, wifey?”

Wirt didn’t accept her help standing up, but he did stand. He looked down at the sun hat with an expression of profound inner conflict, and finally put it back on. “This will all be over in two more days?” he asked, to set clear terms. “By the end of the reception?”

“Yes,” Beatrice guaranteed. Making a promise you couldn’t necessarily keep wasn’t quite the same as lying. 

He took a deep breath, straightened his back, and smoothed out his skirt. He wasn’t happy, but at least he was on board again. “So what’s your plan?” he asked. “Please tell me you have a plan.” 

“Of course I’ve got a plan,” Beatrice said smoothly. They’d risen and recomposed themselves just in time for another wandering couple to enter the atrium on the far end. Looked like Concrete-Shoes O’Connor and his old lady. Beatrice hooked Wirt’s arm and made a show of starting to guide him around the statuary: “Standard heist stuff. My first idea was to use the wedding as a distraction while I break into Rott’s room to get my stuff back, but we can do better than that.”

“What’s more distracting than a wedding?” Wirt asked. His grip on her arm tightened as they passed by the O’Connors on their way out the door. 

“You are,” Beatrice said slyly. Wirt’s face fell again. “Don't you think Quentin Rott is the type to care more about chasing tail than attending his sister’s wedding reception? Wherever you are, he’ll be there too. Guaranteed window of opportunity.”

“I hate your plan.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Yorick, wearing a robe on his way out of the baths, paused in the hallway to watch the two of them go by. Beatrice returned his awestruck look with a smug nod. “Look at these idiots,” she muttered. “Whatever you want from them, you’ll get it. They’re like putty in your hands. Just ‘cause you’re not wearing pants doesn’t mean you’re powerless. _Sweetheart.”_ She said the last word through her teeth as they rounded the corner and ran straight into the human wall which was Ulrich the Undertaker.

“So here is ze _fräulein_ I keep hearing about,” he boomed.

“You’re damn right,” Beatrice boasted, and slung a hand around Wirt’s waist. His posture turned ramrod when she rubbed the outside of his thigh. “I’m taking this hot piece on a little shopping spree this afternoon! Only the best for my best girl.” 

Ulrich continued on his way, not before saying, “You two seem very happy togezer.” They watched him go and Beatrice released Wirt immediately. He wrapped himself in an embrace to replace hers, wearing a haunted look.

“I hate your plan,” he said again.

“I hate Quentin Rott,” Beatrice countered. Wirt didn’t seem to be able to argue with that. They gave one another a moment to stand awkwardly on opposite sides of the tiled hall, listening to the water from the baths behind them and the thrum of the grand entranceway ahead. Individually, they seemed to come to some kind of accord. They reluctantly linked elbows again, and stepped back out into the scrutiny of the afternoon.


End file.
